Shining a Light: New Film Nights

Film comes to the Riga Music Bar

When we first thought about opening up this place our aim was to create a music venue that could cater to the interests of the many and not the few.

We wanted to create a partisan venue that would appeal to music lovers throughout the town, a place where our regulars would know that they could drop in at any time for a pint and have the chance of catching a band or singer that they might have never heard of.

Over time though, with the experience of running this place, our priorities have changed. Planning and executing what has essentially become an arts programme has been a real learning curve for us here and it has led to us broadening our perspectives on what mediums of art we can effectively exhibit here at the Riga Music Bar.

Whilst we’re not about to start filling every open space we have with experimental sculpture and cubist paintings, we do have a new ambition for how to use the space that has given us so much over the last few years.

We will be launching a weekly series of film showings starting next month. Every Wednesday we’ll be putting on a screening of a movie, one week it might be a cult classic that we think deserves a bit of attention and the next week it could be an Oscar-winning smash hit from 50 years ago. One thing that we all have in common here at Riga Music Bar is a love for great cinema and we’re so glad that we’ll be able to share this passion with our wonderful patrons.

In the last few weeks we’ve been in discussions with a variety of architectural lighting companies who’ve been giving us advice on how best to rig a quality projection system in our main space. It’s important to us that when these films are screened we’re doing them justice. That means investing in a high-quality projector and screen that will give a clear, consistent image. Sound is also a real priority for us and we’ve been working on adapting our existing speaker system to be able to properly process surround sound so that you get the best experience possible.

So, without further ado, we’re proud to announce the first slew of titles that we’ll be bringing to the newly formed Riga Screen Club. With each screening we’ll have a specialist cocktail that you’ll be able to buy from the bar and there’ll also be a one-off sharer tray created by the kitchen, perfect for snacking on throughout the movie.

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

With the upcoming release of his new animated feature Isle of Dogs, we’ve been discussing Wes Anderson’s new movie and even though there are so many to choose from we settled on The Darjeeling Limited as it provides the kind of sunshine that we are all in dire need of right now – as well one of the director’s best soundtracks. Expect our special food sharer to have a few Indian twists…

Super Mario Bros. (1993)

Video games have finally made the move into mainstream culture but it’s easy to forget that this was not always the case. Back in 1993, despite Nintendo having released some of its most successful titles in video games history, the characters of Mario and Luigi were still deemed to be for children. This makes the decision to recreate the technicolor environs of the Mushroom Kingdom as a grimy dystopian future even more baffling – still, it makes for surprisingly good watching.

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

Considered to be a deep cut from legendary director Hayao Miyazaki’s extensive back catalogue, this adaptation of a fantasy novel from 1986 features the voices of Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Billy Crystal and even legendary film-star Lauren Bacall. The heady blend of high fantasy, wartime heroics and romance makes for a truly emotional ride and has garnered it a huge cult following that we can hopefully expand even further.